The present invention relates generally to motion capture and, more particularly, to synchronizing data acquired during asynchronous motion capture operations.
Motion capture (“MOCAP”) systems are used to capture the movement of a real object or person and map it onto a computer-generated object. Such systems are often used in the production of motion pictures and video games for creating a digital representation of a person for use as source data to create a computer graphics animation. In a typical system, an actor wears a suit having markers attached at various locations (e.g., having small reflective markers attached to the body and limbs) and digital cameras record the movement of the actor from different angles while illuminating the markers.
Many MOCAP camera systems maintain synchronization to a master clock, wherein data acquired by these MOCAP camera systems are integrated with data acquired by other devices that are not synchronized to the master clock. A problem arises because aligning the data sets from the MOCAP camera system and the other devices is generally difficult due to the lack of a common reference.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method that overcomes these significant problems found in the conventional systems as described.